Summit removed North Korean nuclear threat: Trump

Vastavam web: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat and his top diplomat offered a hopeful timeline for “major disarmament,” despite scepticism at home that Pyongyang will abandon its nuclear weapons following this week’s summit. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a joint statement after their historic meeting in Singapore on Tuesday that reaffirmed the North’s commitment to “work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” and gave U.S. guarantees of security to North Korea. Just over half of Americans approve of how Trump has handled North Korea, but only a quarter think the summit will lead to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday.

North Korea’s state media hailed the summit as a success, including highlighting Trump’s surprise announcement after the meeting that the United States would stop military exercises with South Korea, which the North has long sought. Despite the lack of detail in the summit agreement, Trump stressed at a news conference afterward that he trusted Kim to follow through. He returned to Washington early on Wednesday and hailed the meeting, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, as a major win for American security. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is charged by Trump with leading follow-on negotiations, said the United States hoped to achieve “major disarmament” by North Korea within the next 2-1/2 years.

Democratic lawmakers pointed out that North Korea had often made similar statements in the past about “denuclearisation,” all the while developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that could be capable of striking the United States.